


Sugarlips

by Kara_lovelymusic, Soop



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Multi, Type 1 Diabetes, at least one of us did, crohn's disease, cystic fibrosis, mentions of vomit, obvious tws for hospitals / surgery / related topics, possible mention of blood / needles, slice of hospital life but still slice of life, this is slice of life not angst lol
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-08-09
Packaged: 2018-11-13 00:04:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11172819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kara_lovelymusic/pseuds/Kara_lovelymusic, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Soop/pseuds/Soop
Summary: "Lance, I just... I don't get what the big deal is, man. If the nurse tells you to wear the socks, just wear them?""No, you don't understand! Socks are sweaty little oppressors of my feet and they're itchy and the grips keep getting stuck on my room floor andI'm starting a rebellion whether you like it or not, Hunk!"A collection of children's hospital!AU oneshots. Lance, Pidge, and Hunk have been cooped up in Pavilion 3 for nearly a month now, and restless teenagers are bound to wreak havoc for the wing's staff of nurses.





	1. Deacon Raisinhead

**Author's Note:**

> cw: hospitals, mentions of needles, surgery, general medical stuff you'd find in a hospital setting. if anyone needs anything tagged let me know  
> fyi: pidge has cystic fibrosis and arthritis, hunk has crohn's disease and is recovering from j-pouch surgery, lance has type 1 diabetes but is currently admitted for a broken hand. coran is a child life specialist.

 

  Every time Hunk moves the Eevee playing piece across the Monopoly board, it lands more and more aggressively. 

  Coran had discovered a few weeks prior that board games are usually a quick fix when Hunk or Lance is in a bad mood and an excellent way to get Pidge to leave her room, so he’d gone out and bought a whole slew of games he thought they’d enjoy, _ Pokemon _ Monopoly and Headbands,  _ Simpsons  _ Operation,  _ Marvel _ Guess Who, _ Hello Kitty _ playing cards (the last one was a gag request from Lance that Coran had been intent on carrying out; after six unsuccessful store searches, he’d had to borrow a deck from Allura). Coran had been stopped by at least three nurses wondering what was in his new, giant bag that came to work with him every day, but the other Child Life specialists would simply nod with grim understanding and be along their way. Usually rounds went smoothly and without any cheating or arguing, as long as Pidge and Lance had eaten prior and everyone was well rested. Hunk especially never caused any trouble over results, and usually served as a mediator when Lance questioned if Pidge’s slow way of picking up Monopoly chance cards was somehow a method of cheating. To see him looking so sour was certainly jarring.

 

  Hunk rolls the dice, picks up a Chance card, gets sent to jail, and almost flips the board.

 

  “Alright,  **_that’s it!_ ** ” Pidge sits up straight, pulling her right hand out of her sweatshirt pocket to point an accusatory finger across the table. “What is  _ wrong _ with you today? You know full well that it’s  _ Lance’ _ s job to be the sore loser here, but you’re being a stick-up-the-ass and you’re not even  _ losing! _ ”

 

 Hunk recoils a little in his rec room chair that’s way too small for him. Lance, on his left, covers his Jigglypuff playing piece’s ears to shield it from Pidge.

 

    “I don’t wanna talk about it,” comes Hunk’s response, quiet as he crosses his arms and stares at the board to avoid anyone else’s gaze.

 

   “Hunk…” Coran places a hand gently on the young man’s shoulder. “...My whole job is to be present when there are things you don’t feel comfortable talking about. Do you want to step outside, take a break? It’s okay if you don’t want to discuss what’s bothering you, but that  _ is _ what I’m here for.”

 

  “No, it’s okay, it’s just---” He’s clearly struggling to find the words. Hunk is capable of being angry, very much so, he’s just not used to expressing it instead of stewing over it.  “---my, uh, my guidance counsellor came to visit my room this morning.”

 

  “ _ Deacon Raisinhead?  _ The old dude?” Lance chimes in. “Oh, man, Nyma has him too, she  _ hates  _ that guy!”

 

  “Yeah, that’s him. My mom is working today, but he came unannounced and kinda hung around while I was getting morning bloodwork, right? I mean, like, it was kinda nice at first, he brought me… candy that I can’t eat… but he didn’t know that, it’s cool. But he, like, came with a purpose, I guess? Cuz it turned into…” Hunk sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “...he was, uh, he was almost  _ mad _ at me. I guess cuz I’ve been here a while? Says I need to get a grip on myself, get back to school, but, like,  _ how  _ am I supposed to do that? It’s not like… it’s not like I can just _ decide  _ to grow a new organ, get back to my life, y’know?”

 

 A silence falls around the Monopoly table, before Pidge thoughtfully strokes her chin and goes, “Wow, what a dick.”

 

“ _ Pidge!  _ Watch your language, there are little ones in the toy corner!”

 

“ _ Soooorry,  _ Coran!”

 

Hunk laughs through his nose. Lance looks thoroughly puzzled with the whole situation. “No, wait, really, _ what  _ is he expecting you do to? You had  _ surgery  _ like a month ago, man. They ripped out an intestine like it was Alien poppin’ out of your chest.”

 

“Okay, it was  _ not  _ like that at all.”

 

“Must’ve felt like it, though!” Lance drums on the table as he talks, a thinking habit Coran has noticed his patient has, very similar to when Allura recounts to him how Pidge uses her hands so expressively when she’s speaking on topics she’s passionate about. “I bet the only kinda procedure this guy has had are putting Bandaids over his papercuts! It’s like, like if I had a dollar every time somebody told me to just  _ stop  _ my lows from happening so suddenly. What kinda  _ rudeass hoe of a guidance counsellor--- _ ”

 

“Punch him in the face,” Pidge adds. “Just ask him to come visit you again and _ slug him _ .”

 

  “We will  _ not _ be punching  _ anyone! _ ” Coran has learned from past experiences to shut down Pidge’s more sketchy plans, however jokingly they may be made, _ immediately. _ “It sounds like he just doesn’t understand what’s going on. If it’s upsetting you so much, you should ask your parents to speak with him about this, I think.”

 

 “They  _ have _ , though!” Hunk answers. “It does nothing, and we’re kinda all out of patience to do it again.”

 

  “See, being civilized doesn’t work. Just  _ punch him. _ ”

 

   “ **_No punching people!_ ** But...” Coran strokes his moustache, a glint in his eye as he turns to face Hunk. “Perhaps I could pay him a visit, then. What’s the name of the school you three are from, again?”

 

  Revitalized with the idea of Coran balling out a little old man, Hunk pulls through in the last ten minutes and sweeps the Monopoly game. And as promised, the guidance office at the private school down the road gets a very strange looking visitor that Saturday morning with a Child Life identification badge pinned to his sweater pocket.


	2. Shrinker Dinkers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A new challenger approaches, Lance draws some dicks, Pidge has a crush on the art therapist, and Hunk is a weeaboo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for hospitals, needles/blood mention, a helping of genitalia themed humor

“Hi, everyone, welcome back to Arts n’ Crafts Saturday with Child Life!” The pretty art therapist was back this week, Allura’s friend with the hoop earrings and hazel eyes. Lance thinks she’s cute, sure, but not to the extent Hunk and Pidge take their adoration for her; he doesn’t think he’s ever seen Pidge so enamored with a person before (well… he did catch her _once_ , one other time, but she threatened with vividly-described violence for him to keep his mouth shut, so that’s a setup for him to plan another time), but she’s crushing hard on this poor grad student while Hunk simply admires her.

“If you don’t know me already, I’m Shay---” she gestures to the name tag pinned to her blouse, adorned with Hello Kitty stickers, “---and usually I do the craft today. Unfortunately I have a very special patient I have to make a trip to today, so I brought a friend of mine to show everyone today’s project! You’ll love him, I promise.” Shay peeks out the doorway and waves out into the hall. “Over here, Keith! Last room, left side!”

Lance looks up skeptically at the doorway, expecting some sleazy, middle aged guy with a front tire, a mullet, and a horrid beard to walk through, but was pleasantly surprised to find only two of those things slink into the room. Lance’s whole mood immediately takes a turn for the worst, and Hunk and Pidge can _feel_ it.

“Dude, your aura just shriveled up and died.” Hunk whispers to him, complete with a full-body shiver. “I didn’t know this thing with Keith was still that bad.”  
“Well, it is,” Lance hisses back. “I am _never_ forgiving that douchebag for Spirit Week.”  
“Keith?” Pidge chimes in.  
“C’mon, man, at least be nice about it today! There’s _little guys_ in here,” Hunk says.  
“No way! I’m never gonna live it down, and neither will he!” Lance responds.  
“Who’s Keith? What’d he do?” Pidge helpfully adds.

The delightfully informative conversation gets interrupted by Keith dropping his bag on the front table and loudly clearing his throat. All eyes snap onto a scrawny teenager in all black except for the cheery blue _I Am A Child Life Volunteer_ t-shirt over his hoodie. The sight is rather underwhelming for Lance to be so passionate about, Pidge thinks.

“Alright, listen up!” Keith practically orders, then realizes he’s talking to a bunch of little kids, two vaguely familiar teenagers, and some random toddler sitting with them, and decides to tone down the aggression. “Uh… well, I’m in charge of the craft today, and, um, looks like we’re doing…” He reaches into the big bag on the table and pulls out a box, squinting at the front for a solid three seconds. “... _Shrinker Dinkers: Creative Pack._ ”

Pidge covers her mouth to suppress her laughter. “Pffff… _Shrinker Dinkers_? You forg-- _snnnk_ \-- you forget your glasses, man?”

“ _ **Yes**_.” Keith answers through gritted teeth, then turns to busy himself with opening the box and spread out its contents on the table. “Okay, uh, everybody come up, take some shrinkers and markers, or uh, pencils or crayons if you want, I guess.”

The patients gather around the table with excited murmurs. Hunk hangs in the back to make sure Pidge and Lance didn’t run over any children in the excitement to approach Keith.

“Sooo, Shrinker Dinkers, this your first day on the job?” Pidge beats Lance to it, adjusting her glasses to match her trademark lopsided grin as she faces Keith. He rolls his eyes and scoffs at her.  
“Like Shrinky Dinks sounds any better.” Keith says. “And no, I’m here on weekends the past six months. You wouldn’t know that, though, I guess, since you look like you were born _two weeks ago._ ”  
Pidge looks offended for about half a second, before she turns her head back to Hunk with wide eyes and goes, “Oooh, I like this guy!”

Lance shoulders past her next, taking his plastic pieces and crayons deliberately slow as he stares at Keith. Keith gets a creeping feeling this guy doesn’t just have a common face. “Uh, do I…know you?”  
“Do you _know_ me? Excuse me?” Lance nearly crushes the macaroni and cheese orange in his good hand. “Uhhh, yeah, of course you do! We’re _rivals_! You know, Lance and Keith, neck and neck, tops of the class in honors geometry until my tragic accident, finalists in the sixth grade math bee?”  
“...?”  
“You broke my hand in dodgeball during Spirit Week?”  
“...Oh! McClain!” He still barely understands their apparent personal connection, but at least he knows who he is. “That’s right, we’re in homeroom together. How… how you doing? You… look great?”  
“My hand’s broken.”  
“Right, right…” Keith breaks eye contact to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Guess he can’t put the blame on Rolo after this. Oops. “...uh… so Pavillion 3, huh?”  
“Yeah.”  
“So you, uh, must’ve met Hunk, then?”  
“ _Met_ him? We’ve been best friends for ten years! How do you know _**Hunk**_ and not me? I mean, c’mon!” And with that Lance grabs an angry fistful of crayons and storms off to where Pidge is perched on a beanbag. Keith winces and glances over to Hunk.  
“He’s mad about the hand,” Hunk mouths across the room before standing up and following Lance.  
“No shit, Sherlock,” Keith mouths back.

Keith’s stuck at the front table for another twenty minutes helping the little ones sort themselves out. He loves working with kids, really. Sure, he needs the service hours, and he gets free lunch, and Shay is always super nice to him, but… he got his needed hours four months ago. If he didn’t enjoy this a little bit, he wouldn’t have kept coming back every Saturday. Children are easy. They hold no grudges, tell it like it is, and live with no strings attached. Keith can handle kids.  
Teenagers are _not_ something he can handle.  
Well, he got permanently moved over to Pavilion 3, so he should at least try to make the local patients not hate him. And if he can’t do that, he oughta be catching up with Hunk anyway, right?  
Keith sneaks over to the beanbag occult circle and gingerly rests a hand on Hunk’s shoulder. The guy’s lost weight, he notices, no longer the heavyweight frame that helped him grab the only sophomore spot on varsity football. Maybe he just doesn’t like the food cart cuisine! Ah, Keith can fix that. He stopped in the downstairs cafeteria earlier.  
The trio turn to face him as he shuffles around in his backpack and pulls out a rolled-up paper bag. “I, uh, snuck some chips from the cafeteria, if anyone wants. There’s, uh, baked Lays, and… Cheetos, cuz I heard Hunk was staying, and I, uh, remember from our lunch period you… like Cheetos… and… _why_ are you all staring at me.”  
Hunk’s about to say something, but Pidge beats him to the punch with a disbelieving expression on her face. “You’re kidding, right? Hunk can’t eat.”  
 _Oh._   
Keith goes beet-red and mentally curses himself. Before he can attempt to cover it up, Hunk laughs nervously and takes the potato chips. “Really, man, it’s cool. Don’t worry. Even the nurses forget I’m on Nutrition sometimes. I-I’m gonna barbecue some killer ribs when I get outta here, hah… you know, though, Lance _loves_ Lays!” Hunk waggles his eyebrows at Lance and holds out the bag of chips in a silent plea of conversation change now, please.

But Lance is not having it. “He probably poisoned those. I’m not eating them.”

Maybe Keith had a _reason_ to break this guy’s hand and just doesn’t remember. It was probably justified, judging from his personality.

“I’ll eat them, then!” Pidge snatches the bag from Hunk’s hands and pops it open. “Lays are like gold around here.”  
“‘Course you’d eat the poison chips, you’ll eat _anything_.” Lance grumbles. “You ate my third favorite lip scrub.”  
“ _Fucker_ , I didn’t eat it!”  
“You said it tasted good!”  
“It got in my mouth! I didn’t _eat_ it!”  
“You used a lip scrub? When?” Hunk interrupts.  
“ _ **No! Never!**_ ” Pidge’s cheeky tune changes as soon as Hunk gets in on the conversation. “Look, Lance made shrinker dinkers! Pay attention to _that_!”  
Lance perks up a little at that. “Oh, yeah! Look, Keith, I drew you!”  
Keith looks down at a sheet of exactly what he was expecting to see. “Ah. A bunch of dicks.”  
“It’s you and your family!”  
Keith takes a deep breath, calling on every ounce of his being not to rip it to shreds and throw it out the window. “What’d the little boy draw?”  
“I’m not a dude, dude.” Pidge rolls her eyes and Keith gets a little bit of deja vu of all the times he’s made that exact expression. “Look what _I_ made.”  
“...Ah. More penises. Very creative.”  
“It’s a life study. Lance’s face was my model.”  
“Typical. Hunk?”  
Hunk hands over his sheet. It’s way worse than cartoon penises. It’s _anime_. Hunk also did a ‘life study’ of his partners in crime. Lance has pointy sunglasses and an even pointier chin, and the scruffy kid with the glasses has a cutesy Sailor Scout face with sparkles around her. “It’s… really nice.”  
“Aw, thanks! Trying to find my style, y’know how it is.”  
Right.  
Keith coughs awkwardly and takes the other two sheets. “Alright! That’s enough of that. Shay told me to take all the sheets back to her to bake.”  
 _“Ms. Palmer’s gonna see my dicks?”_ Pidge looks absolutely mortified of the idea. Keith’s just embarrassed about her word choice.  
“Yup. Well, this was fun, I’m making sure to never do craft day on this wing again.”  
“Awww, Ken!” Pidge whines.  
“ _Keith_!”  
“ _Keeeef_! You know you like us! _**Keefles Peefles!**_ ” But he’s already gone, moving fast to collect the shrinker sheets from the other children. Pidge flops dramatically against Hunk’s side in defeat and Lance reaches for some chips when he thinks no one’s looking.  
“Keith’s a good kid, you guys,” Hunk whispers, shifting so his arm doesn’t fall asleep under Pidge. “Don’t cause too much trouble.”  
“Can I break his hand? Just a little bit? Emo loser deserves it.”  
“ _No, Lance!_ ” Hunk scolds. “Just… maybe tone it down a little from assaulting his vision with weirdly detailed dicks? Ya _nasties_.”   
Pidge’s snickers are muffled into Hunk’s side. “I figured it’d subconsciously give Lance better veins next time he gets blood taken!”  
“ _ **Nasty**_.” Lance echoes Hunk’s previous statement with extra disgust.   
Hunk rubs his temples and sighs. “Whatever. You get my point. I’m just _saying_. We had our lunch period together, he’s not so bad.”  
“I dunno, man. He called me an infant! We’re in the same geometry class.”  
“Stupid genius freshie.” Lance hisses.  
“You’re just jealous you didn’t get to skip Algebra like I did~.”  
“That Regents was _hard_ , Pidge! I--”

“No, it wasn’t. You just _suck_ at math.” Keith whacks Lance in the back of the head with the shrinker sheet pile on his way out of the door. Lance hisses like a cat and goes to run after him, but Hunk’s got him by the good arm. Pidge cackles like a hyena at Lance’s attempts to break free of Hunk’s still-varsity-standard grip, and Keith escapes the room unscathed with the genitalia shaped Shrinky Dinks under one arm.

This means _war_.


	3. No Water Allowed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! This is Kara there's an announcement in regards to the (nonexistent) update schedule at the end. Also, there's mentions of vomiting in this chapter, so if you want to avoid that stop at "Lance paused, “No water!” " and pick up at "Shiro sighed heavily". Enjoy!

When Hunk was walking over to the snack cabinet, he overheard the nurses talk about Lance being admitted again. He’s apparently staying for awhile this time, he began to grow worried, and started looking for his best friend. He asked the receptionist where his room was and once she told him, he immediately speed-walked over to Lance’s room. When he got there, he quietly knocked on the door, but there was no answer.  He opened the door and peeked his head in.

“Lance?” he called out but then noticed the empty hospital bed, “Lance?!” Hunk rushed in the room and only saw evidence of Lance leaving his bed sheets wrinkled. Heaving a weary sigh, Hunk trekked out the room towards the rec center. There he found Lance and Pidge hunched over his laptop, he sighed in relief and shuffled over to join whatever shenanigans they had planned today. Hunk grabbed a seat and plopped down into it.

“Hey Hunk!”

“‘Sup, Hunka-hunk of burnin’ love?” Lance rasped out, there was dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, not to mention it looked like he didn’t even brush his hair before he came here in his wrinkled pajamas. Sounds like he needs a desperate drink of water and that made Hunk even more worried.

“I was looking for you, man! I heard you were being re-admitted for a while from one of the nurses!”

Pidge scoffed, “Of course you’d get that info from eavesdropping, just like how you  _ read my diary.”  _ her tone caused Hunk to wince but continue on. 

“So what happened?!” He leaned forward on his seat to scrutinize Lance. Lance slumped in his seat with a dramatic sigh.

“ _ Well _ , uh, you know how I just recently got my omni pod?” Pidge nodded, but Hunk looked a little lost. “...My insulin pump?”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah go on.” 

“Okay,” he tried to swallow, but it was difficult due to his extremely dry mouth; still, he continued on. “So, I put it on my thigh, right? But it’s really cold so I’ve been inside my house all day wearing sweats and laying on it with my blanket on top. I went to sleep that night feeling like shi-”

“ _ Children, _ ” Pidge reminded. Hypocrite.

“Shh _ hmyyymey _ … anyways, I checked my blood and it was 400 something--” The two gasped, and Lance reached for a water bottle mindlessly and took a few sips of it.

“So I gave myself insulin. I went to sleep and woke up later to go throw up in the bathroom. I thought it was a one time thing so I went back to sleep only to get up again and barf on my hand a little before reaching the bathroom---”

“Been there, man.” Hunk nodded solemnly.

“Dude, shut up!” Pidge hissed back.

“--- _ Anyway _ , I checked my blood and it was still in the 400s, so I kept giving myself insulin. Happened a few more times before my mom decided to take me here. And they told me that my insulin overheated and was basically poisoning, so my ketones were hel-”

“ _ Children! _ ” 

“ _Hecka_ high.” He drank a bit more water; right on cue Shiro bolted in, and his eyes immediately zeroed in on Lance.  
“ ** _Lance!”_** Lance paused, “ _No water!”_ but the warning came too late as Lance scrambled up and went to the nearest trashcan to heave up what little content he had left in his stomach. Shiro went to Lance’s side and rubbed his back in soothing circles until the teen was done heaving.

Shiro sighed heavily, “Your ketones are still too high, Lance, that’s why we haven’t given you anything orally.” he said softly.

Lance was trembling slightly as he tried to stand, but wobbled slightly when he saw black spots clouding his vision before clearing,    


“Woah..” 

“Okay, that settles it, you’re going back to bed.”

“But  _ Shiiiiiroooo!” _   
“No  _ buts! _  Let’s get you to your room.” Lance let out a slight whine, but didn’t put up a fight as he usually would as he was led down the hall to his room.

“Woah, that was… yikes, I didn’t realize poisoned insulin could do  _ that. _ ” Pidge sighed and turned back to her laptop, continuing to type out whatever it was before Hunk had came in. 

“Yeah, poor Lance,” he shuddered in sympathy, knowing that feeling all too well. Hunk leaned over her a bit to see what she was doing.

“So, uh, what exactly am I looking at? All I see’s a list of songs. Wha- What’s this about?” He tilted his head to the side, like a cute little puppy, and suddenly she’d be very glad to pepper his cute little puppy nose with kisses and  _ woah woah woah what the hell, Pidge, snap out of it, what are these antibiotics doing to my brain? _

“It’s a playlist for the prank we’re gonna pull. Duh.”  Pidge sucked in a breath and shook her head a little bit, turning back to the laptop screen. “See, what we were  _ gonna _ do was hide a bluetooth speaker somewhere and just start playing some songs at a really low volume and bounce the songs around on different speakers. Just to mess with Shiro or Coran, maybe others if we feel like it. But it just doesn’t feel like  _ enough _ , y’know? Shiro would probably find it, or at least turn up his own music on the wing speakers.

So I did a little snooping and spying here and there, and turns out Shiro doesn’t log out of his computer every time he steps away. Fatal mistake. So we wait ‘til he leaves his desk alone, sneak over, upload the playlist, change his password, and _bam,_ annoying music in his office _forever._ ” 

“I ‘unno, Pidge, that sounds super risky… what if we get caught? Shiro’ll have our asses and you know it.”

“If Shiro has our asses, Matt will have his,” Pidge answers without missing a beat. “And Matt’s a nurse for adults. Trust me, Shiro does  _ not  _ want an angry nurse from the main wing on him. He won’t get on Matt’s bad side if he knows what’s good for him.”

“Oooh, devious. But what if---”

“Dude, c’mon! Have I ever steered you wrong in the world of pranks?”

“Yeah. Multiple times in the past two weeks, actually. But… mmmm, I get the feeling I don’t have a choice in helping you?”

“Nope!~”

“...Alright, count me in.” He gave a soft smile, something that seemed private. Like that smile was for her and her alone, It made her heart flutter in all the worst ways.

She realized they weren’t always this…  _ close _ . They’re  _ friends  _ now, real buds, bonded by trauma and tangled up together in IV tubes. She  _ knows  _ Hunk Garrett, the gentle giant foodie with Crohn’s who complains about everything from bland cooking to tailgating, and yet she still hasn’t quite gotten over her celebrity crush on Hunk Garrett, the sophomore football star she could never dream of having a conversation with. 

“I, uh...” Pidge cleared her throat. “Welcome aboard, then. Here, you add to the list.”  Pidge slid the laptop over; Hunk grabbed it with eager hands and began typing away. 

Hunk scrolled through Youtube intensely, a music downloader in another window for him to drop links in as he worked. God, Pidge’s a little ashamed to recognize some of this stuff. Anime theme songs? _ Seriously? _ She spots the cover art for the  _ Puella Magi Madoka Magica  _ soundtrack and has a momentary flashback to the deep discussion they’d had over that show over a round of  _ The Game of Life _ . Really, though, it’d been less of a real conversation and more of Hunk gushing his little weeb heart out about the art direction and fantastic dress designs. She’d gotten a little caught up in it all, in the way his forehead creases when he’s concentrating on something and how his eyes sparkled with each little excited outburst and--

oh,  _ no. Focus, Pidge! _

__ He’s moved from anime music to Broadway now, even more detestable. She watches as Hunk pauses to consider a song, a long pause, and then drags it to the downloader anyway. Pidge catches the title and squints.  _ I Love You Like A Table.  _ What the hell kind of weird poetry slam shit does he even listen to?

But she remembers for just a second when Shiro had thrown a ‘dance party’ in the rec room in a desperate attempt to get them active, to prevent any kind of damage to Pidge’s lungs and to finally, finally lure Hunk out of his room post-op. She can still feel the ghost of Hunk’s hands on her forearms, still smell the rose-scented shampoo in his hair that his religious aunts had bought from Lourdes and forced him to use, still hear his soft laughter as they swung around to some love song from  _ Hamilton _ . She remembers thinking how jealous her classmates would be of her, know-it-all little freshman Katie Holt, dancing with  **_the_ ** Hunk Garrett _ ,  _ and she longs to drag him to his feet and dance again for the hell of it, if only for a moment.

_...Fuck, everything’s quiet! Too much focus! Say something! _

Pidge fidgeted a bit before speaking up. “Hey, uh, maybe we should go check on Lance after you finish. I think he might need an audience to spout out some epic monologue about how miserable he is, heh.” she adjusted her glasses nervously. 

“It would be a miracle if he could even speak” Hunk trailed off. Pidge chewed her lip in concern at his forlorn expression.

“We could bring him something to make him feel better? Like a decent soup when he’s able to eat again!” At that a beaming smile bloomed on Hunk’s face. Pidge swore he would be the death of her.

Hunk got out of his seat and turned towards Pidge as she was packing up her things. When she was done, Hunk wasted no time in grasping her hand and booking it to the community kitchen. Her heart couldn’t help but flutter a little again, and it took every ounce of brainpower she had to convince herself she’s got the jitters from the antibiotics she just started.

She can very clearly see his grin as he bounces into the kitchen, always excited to work with food even if he can’t have any of it. On the way they ran into Lance’s cousin and ask her if she can run to the store real quick, once she agreed, Hunk continued to lead her to the kitchen. She couldn’t help but admire the way he tend to flit around the kitchen in preparation to start cooking and when she couldn’t reach something he would just  _ reach _ up and hand it to her with a patient smile. 

S he gets the sinking feeling that she won't be able to blame the feelings in her chest on antibiotics.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry y'all missed out on some quality meme-y Hunk, blame Soop. Anyways, in regard to the random update schedule we decided to update chapter every other Friday/Saturday. Hopefully this will get us to focus more on writing the chapters and give y'all something to look forward to!

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to ask any questions about what's up with anyone or correct me on something! i have a lot of experience with children's hospitals but the only characters we can really write from experience are hunk, lance, and the child life staff members, so if we get a detail wrong or you think we should include a detail about a character's disease or job, let us know!! we're happy to take suggestions! representation of chronic illnesses are so far and few between and Rarely handled respectfully so if we can make you feel good about seeing yourself in these kids we want to!!!  
> and yes, sugarlips is a relevant title; it's a running joke that will be revealed in due time ;)

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Operation: Covert Spaghetti](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13121355) by [hastyquickbeam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hastyquickbeam/pseuds/hastyquickbeam)




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